When a person has dementia, their senses can be compromised, which can be dangerous in an emergency situation. That's why The Newbury at Brookline, a senior living community, hosted a virtual training for the Brookline Fire Department to help first responders better understand the challenges faced by people with memory loss.
About 30 firefighters participated in the immersive training over two days this week, on Wednesday and Thursday. Each one donned glasses that impaired their vision and headphones with loud, garbled voices and sounds. They also wore gloves, similar to oven mitts, that mimicked impaired dexterity. They each went into a room and had to complete tasks like putting on a scarf, writing a letter and packing items in a backpack.
Firefighter Franz von Lambsdorff, who has worked for Brookline Fire Department for 23 years, said the experience helped him understand what his mother, who had dementia, went through. He called it an "eye-opening" experience.
"How a lot of your [senses] are compromised," he said. "The touch, the feel, the vision, definitely hearing, trying to listen to the instructions while you have background noises — very hard — and trying to move around with all these distractions," he said.
Almost 7 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is expected to double by 2060.
Brenda Gurung, national director of memory care services for Kisco Senior Living, which operates The Newbury, said the immersive training is based on 20 years of research by the nonprofit, Second Wind Dreams.
"First responders, whom we are so grateful for, they have to go into a crisis speed-oriented situation, which is absolutely not a situation that is conducive to somebody who's on a dementia journey," Gurung said. "So we provide some real practical tools about how they can still do the work that they are required to do, but to do it more successfully because they modify for a person who has impacted cognitive abilities."
During the session, the firefighters were interrupted by loud, sudden noises like sirens in their headphones, had to read a list of tasks that had jumbled words, and tried to listen to a person giving them verbal instructions. It was all meant to show how people with cognitive decline can become fearful or confused quickly and can be triggered when a stranger approaches them in an already stressful situation.
The training also included tips for working with someone in an emergency situation, including speaking in short sentences, giving instructions slowly one at a time, allowing them more time to respond, being cautious when physically touching them and approaching people individually rather than as a group.
"We really emphasize the unseen aspects of the various dementias. So in society, we always hear about short-term memory loss or aggression, or my person won't recognize me,'' Gurung said. "But so much else is going on."
Many of the firefighters said the experience will help them when they are responding to emergency calls. Xavier Peter, who has been a Brookline firefighter for seven years, said the experience helped show, "what it's like to be in the shoes of a person with dementia."
"Being in Brookline and having a lot of buildings with senior people, we run into stuff like that a lot,'' he said. "It's good to have this understanding for sure."
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